Straddling his hips, she felt his hard cock pressing against her thigh. She reached between them, guiding him to her slick entrance. Slowly, she sank down, taking him inch by exquisite inch until he was buried to the hilt inside her. The fullness was overwhelming, perfect, and a groan tore from her throat.
“Look at you,” he rasped, his hands coming to grip her hips, his fingers pressing into her flesh. “My queen, claiming her king.”
She began to move, setting a rhythm that was both deliberate and desperate. Her hands braced on the hard wall of his chest as she rode him, each rise and fall stoking the fire higher. Beneath her, he met every thrust, his hips surging upward to meet herdescent, the force of it driving pleasure through her in relentless waves.
The connection was more than physical. It was a humming current in the air between them, the mate bond they had nurtured now glowing like a live wire.
“Faith,” he gritted out, his control fraying. His claws, usually so carefully sheathed, pricked at the skin of her hips. “I’m going to mark you now.”
“Mark me,” was all she could manage, the word a breathless plea.
As her climax gathered, a storm about to break, he shifted his right hand. The sharp, swift scratch across her hipbone was a bright flare of pain that cut through the pleasure—and then fused with it. At the exact moment her orgasm shattered through her and his orgasm shuddered through him, the pain transformed, melting into a spreading warmth that bloomed from the mark outward, like sunlight flooding her veins.
In that instant, the world rewired itself. His consciousness wasn’t just beside hers; it was interwoven. She felt the staggering depth of his devotion, the ferocity of his protectiveness, and the humbled awe that she had chosen him. It was all there, a cascade of feeling that was uniquely Kovrak.
As the last tremors subsided, he pulled her down against him, her sweat-slicked skin meeting his. His hand came up to stroke her hair.
Can you hear me?The words formed not in the air, but directly in her mind, his mental voice a deeper, more resonant version of his own.
Her heart skipped, a flutter of nerves at the profound intimacy of it. But the trust they’d built—the trust she had in him, and the trust he had in her—steadied her. She focused, pouring her answer toward that new, shining connection between them.
I hear you.
Faith’s body hummed with a contentment so profound it felt like coming home after years of wandering. The mate mark on her hip pulsed with warmth, a living brand that seemed to echo the steady rhythm of Kovrak’s heartbeat beneath her cheek. She traced lazy patterns across his chest, marveling at how perfectly she fit against the solid planes of his body, how natural it felt to be draped over him.
The completed bond between them thrummed quietly—not overwhelming, but present like a second heartbeat. She could sense his satisfaction at the completion, and beneath it all, a wonder that matched her own. They were irrevocably bound now.
“I can feel you thinking,” he murmured, his hand stroking down the length of her spine with possessive gentleness.
“I’m just processing everything.” She pressed a kiss to the hollow of his throat.
“Tell me.” The command was soft but unmistakable.
Faith lifted her head to meet his gaze, those ice-blue eyes studying her with a burning intensity that made her pulse quicken. “I was thinking about how wrong I was about everything.”
His eyebrows rose slightly. “Explain.”
“When I first arrived here and learned about the mate thing, I thought choosing you would mean giving up pieces of myself. Shrinking down to fit into your life.” She shifted, wincing slightly as her healing injuries protested, but his hands immediately steadied her. “But this doesn’t feel like losing anything. It feels like... more. Like I’m becoming better than I ever imagined possible.”
The smile that spread across his face was devastating in its warmth. “My perfect mate,” he said, rolling them carefully soshe lay beside him. “You haven’t lost anything. You’ve claimed everything you’ve ever wanted and more—including me.”
The future stretched before them, vast and uncertain. There would be politics to navigate, enemies to face, a kingdom to help rule. But wrapped in his arms, marked and bound and utterly unafraid, Faith knew she was exactly where she always belonged.
“Whatever comes next,” she whispered, pulling him down for a kiss, “we face it together.”
“Together,” he agreed against her lips, the word a vow that sealed their fate.
SIXTEEN
KOVRAK
Kovrak had commanded an army of white tiger warriors and defended his Auryxterritory decisively these past twenty years, had felt the surge of triumph after countless victories that left his enemies bloodied and his pride roaring with celebration—yet nothing compared to the quiet, luminous contentment of lying beside his newly marked mate while the completed bond hummed like a living current between their souls. The warmth pulsed steadily beneath his skin, a rhythm that matched Faith’s heartbeat where she’d rested against his chest, and he could still hear the echo of her breathless words:I’m ready.
Ready for his mark. Ready for him. Ready for forever.
After three days of tending her burns and sprained ankle with careful hands and offering every guarded truth he’d hoarded for decades, he had steeled himself to wait patiently for her choice—to give her whatever time she required to accept the mate bond. Instead, she had chosen him and the bond without hesitation over breakfast, her brown eyes clear and certain as she’d spoken the words that rewrote his entire existence.
When he mentioned the necessity of informing the council elders, he’d assumed she would accompany him—his mate andfuture queen walking at his side as tradition required. But Faith surprised him again with that fierce independence that made his tiger purr with approval.